For anyone even curious about homeschooling,
let alone unschooling, a book that includes the likes of John Holt,
Rue Kream and Jan Hunt demands attention.

The Unschooling Unmanual brings
together contributions from eight authors in eleven very readable
essays. The diverse contributions are woven together with recurring
themes – these were many but the ones that kept emerging for me
were freedom, learning and more than anything… trust.

The Power of Trust

This theme is addressed directly in all of Jan
Hunt’s contributions. She opens her first essay with the sentence,
“The main element in successful unschooling is trust” before
discussing how to provide space and time for curiosity to flourish.
Drawing heavily from John Holt but also using quotes from Albert
Einstein and John Taylor Gatto, Hunt provides a simple picture of
what kind of environment and support children really need to
learn… incidentally, it looks nothing like school!

Hunt’s final contribution entitled
“Learning to Trust” describes how much she has learned through
connecting with and observing her son Jason over the years. Now 27,
Jason co-edited and did the layout for the Unmanual (In true
unschooling fashion, Jason said he “learned how to do the book
layout by doing the book layout”).

Hunt’s four essays sprinkled throughout the
book combine broader points on the nature of learning, stories from
Jason’s childhood and practical approaches to a life learning
journey. I particularly enjoyed her chapter on “Learning through
Play” where among other things, Hunt briefly contrasts the way she
learned math (through school and instruction) with Jason (through
darts and play).

Hunt makes the point that, “Jason can not
only do the math easily but really understands the whole process. If
he happens to need a new mathematical tool, he can easily learn
it”. Hunt captures his joy in learning when describing how Jason
once came to her with a math book requesting, “Let’s play
math”.

Getting Perspective

The Unmanual begins with Rue Kream on
“Why Choose Unschooling?” This along with a later essay on
College have been reprinted from Kream’s classic and invaluable
unschooling book, Parenting A Free Child: An Unschooled Life.

In typical Kream style, this short essay has
loads of clarity, hope and joy that comes from someone who is clear
on what is important to her and living her life accordingly. So what
is important to Kream? In her words, “children belong with their
families. Nothing is more important than living in connection with
the ones you love and sharing life‘s experiences.” Kream goes on
to explain that her motivation for unschooling is not academic:
“Ultimately I‘d say that the reason we choose to unschool is
because we want our children to be truly free.”

A Glimpse into Unschooling Lives

Kream’s clarity sets a framework to enjoy
Nanda Van Gestel’s and Kim Houssenloge’s essays as they share
their respective unschooling journeys. The inclusion of such
personal stories, alongside a number of short grabs from Mary Van
Doren, help to give readers a sense of “what unschooling looks
like”, although part of the point is that it never looks the same.

Van Gestel’s journey is described via
sub-chapters covering math, reading, joy, play, health, attachment
parenting and more. The main themes of the book continue with Van
Gestel ending her story realizing that “it didn‘t matter if my
children learned on the same schedule as those of my friend. All
that mattered was that we trusted them to learn on their own
schedule. By meeting their needs and learning to trust, we have
discovered to our delight that unschooling is simply living life,
naturally and joyfully.”

Houssenloge’s essay charts her at times
angst-ridden investigation into which educational approach was best
for her young son. Her investigation into Montessori, Steiner and
the “best schools” eventually gave way to an understanding that
homeschooling could continue the natural learning approach of her
son’s first four years. A teacher herself, Hossenloge’s growing
confidence in her son’s voracious curiosity led her to research
unschooling. This process left a major impression as she notes, “I
learned more about the nature of learning in a few short months than
I ever did as a student in the school system and later on as a
university student.”

Deepening Understanding

Mid-book, we are taken through a more
intellectual critique of school by Daniel Quinn. In an approach that
would make John Taylor Gatto proud, Quinn in his own words aims to
provide a “philosophical, historical, anthropological, and
biological foundation for your conviction that school ain‘t all
it‘s cracked up to be.” In this compelling essay, Quinn presents
his core belief that “From infancy onward, children are the most
fantastic learners in the world.”

Quinn’s argument serves as back drop to Earl
Stevens who asks “What is Unschooling?” In answering this
question Stevens describes a life where children learn by “doing
real things” and activities can be tailored to meet the needs and
interests of each individual child.

I particularly enjoyed Stevens’ analogy
around searching for evidence of what unschooled children are
learning. “It is a little like watching a garden grow. No matter
how closely we examine the garden, it is difficult to verify that
anything is happening at that particular moment. But as the season
progresses, we can see that much has happened, quietly and
naturally. Children pursue life, and in doing so, pursue knowledge.
They need adults to trust in the inevitability of this very natural
process, and to offer what assistance they can.”

It is appropriate that the final chapter of
the Unmanual has been handed over to the late John Holt. Holt
is often cited as a key founder of the unschooling movement and Hunt
generously acknowledges his influence in her articles and even more
forthrightly by dedicating the Unmanual itself to Holt in its
opening pages.

In an excerpt from his book Learning All
the Time, Holt relates how his experience as a teacher and
observations of children led him to understand that “learning is
not the product of teaching”. Holt’s short contribution to the
book is eminently quotable and rich in useful observations. One of
many points of interest is that “we can best help children learn,
not by deciding what we think they should learn and thinking of
ingenious ways to teach it to them, but by making the world, as far
as we can, accessible to them, paying serious attention to what they
do, answering their questions - if they have any - and helping them
explore the things they are most interested in.”

A Sound Investment in Learning and Trust

Theoretically you could access some of the
writings in this book from Jan Hunt’s Natural Child Project
website and the other books I have cited in the review. However,
like so many compilations, having the essays in one volume seems to
make the book greater than the sum of its parts.

The Unmanual is a great introduction to
learning and unschooling for people coming from an educational
perspective who are willing to have their comfort zone pushed. At
the same time it can be an invaluable confidence booster for people
already on an unschooling journey.

The Unmanual’s focus means that it
does not stray too deeply into issues around non-coercive parenting
and broader freedoms that are often a topic of discussion by
unschoolers, but that is perhaps one of its strengths. In my
opinion, there has been a gap in unschooling literature. On one
hand, there are very basic introductions such as Mary Griffith’s The
Unschooling Handbook, and on the other hand there are
challenging investigations into more holistic parenting or radical
unschooling approaches through Rue Kream’s excellent Parenting
A Free Child: An Unschooled Life and Valerie Fitzenreiter’s The
Unprocessed Child.

Previously, the main bridge between relatively
basic unschooling concepts on one side and descriptions of radical
unschooled lives on the other, were the writings of John Holt. TheUnschooling Unmanual strengthens this bridge tremendously by
becoming a concise, readable and accessible manifesto for natural
learning and trust in children.

I know I have overused that word “trust”
in writing about TheUnschooling Unmanual, but frankly
it’s hard to avoid. For my part, after reading this collection of
essays, I was left with a sense of quiet calm that can only come
from renewed trust. Trust in natural learning; trust in choosing an
unschooled life; and ultimately trust in my children.